


A Debt to be Repaid

by slamncram (GettheSalt)



Series: Trettien [10]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Comics), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Historical, Bargaining, Fictober, M/M, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Pre-Slash, Selkies, Sirens, Vikings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-11
Updated: 2018-10-11
Packaged: 2019-07-29 09:30:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16261436
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/slamncram
Summary: The men had made an attempt on his life. Thor expected to wake up in Valhalla, and find his father and brothers there. Awakening in a grotto with a being wanting to make a deal is about the furthest thing from that.





	A Debt to be Repaid

**Author's Note:**

> Fictober Day 10/31. The danger with these fics is I have so many I want to turn into something longer. This? Is one of them.

As the Jarl’s son, he should have been afforded protections by the mere truth that to harm him was to sign one’s life away.

As the son of a Jarl who was now the target of a coup, those protections meant nothing.

The attack had been hard to see coming, as though the mist that had fogged their morning had fogged his mind in turn. One moment, he had been trying to survey the distance, contemplating the route their ship should take. The next, he was being held in place by four men while a fifth bound his hands and feet.

The last things he remembered were the icy bite of the ocean as he plunged into it, and the darkness of the water that promised to serve as his grave.

They were vikings. Such was their way. He could only hope for Valhalla to take him, and accept that he may soon meet his father and brothers there.

When he woke, it was to sand and stone at his back, not golden light. Rather, it was almost cold. Not the Valhalla that he had been expecting.

“You’re awake.”

The voice was not one he knew, and whatever disorientation Thor Odinson had been muddling through, he set it aside in favour of this new mystery. Sitting up, the fur that had been covering him slipped down, exposing his bare chest.

He was in what he could only assume was a cave, though, as far as he could tell, the entrance to it could not have been through anything but the dark pool across from where he lay. In the far corner of the cave there was a fire that lit up the pool’s edges, making it easy for Thor to avoid slipping into it as he approached the fire’s warmth, the fur that he had been covered in wrapped about his shoulders.

At the fire’s side sat a figure, and it was them Thor approached, cautiously.

Whoever they were, they were male, he thought. Not by the look of him, but by the fact that he, like Thor, was naked, and sitting cross-legged at the fireside. His dark hair was long, disappearing over his shoulders, and his eyes were a piercing green that glittered in the fire’s light.

There was something about him that warned Thor, immediately. He was not human, and Thor should be careful.

“Am I dead?”

The man – if Thor could call him that – laughed. It was soft and melodic, and rather than feeling threatened, he felt charmed. That, on its own, was a warning to be heeded, and Thor did. He moved closer to the fire, noticing his own clothing draped over some of the rocks at its side to dry. That seemed too kind, and Thor kept the fire between himself and the other as a shield. If whatever this being was intended to harm him, Thor wouldn’t make it simple.

“I suspected you might be a touch disoriented,” the man started, not moving from his spot. “But dead? No, my dear viking. You are not dead. I saved you.”

Thor smiled, tight-lipped and wary. He knew what had been done to him by the men on his ship. Surviving that would be no easy feat, but he had. The possibility that there was truth to this being’s claims did not sit well.

“Demon?” Thor asked, his thoughts going back to the Christians their ships had encountered. Perhaps he had been thinking wrong all this time, and their God and religion were far more correct than those of the Norsemen.

The man laughed again, shook his head. “No. Some may call me as such. I have a much simpler name, though, one that you may not fear so readily. Selkie.”

The word wasn’t foreign to Thor. He had heard it before on travels, and had translated it to something he knew better.

“Siren.” He whispered, not taking his eyes from the selkie, but running the palm of one hand over the skin he had wrapped around his shoulders. The fur was short, but thick. A seal’s skin.

“Not quite.” The selkie said, clearly trying to keep from laughing again.”It is not my goal to lead you to your death, viking. I _did_ deliberately choose to keep you from it.”

Thor lifted a part of the skin keeping him warm. “And you gave me this.”

A dangerous move for a selkie, Thor knew, yet all the tales he’d heard had been of women. Selkie-wives taken by daring and cruel fishermen. Not once had Thor heard of a skin being given freely, or of a selkie choosing to save a human’s life.

“I did. Bold of me, perhaps,” the selkie mused. He shifted, getting to his feet gracefully, and Thor worked to keep himself still and steady. He could not and should not react. It was true, the selkie could attack him, now, while he was somewhat defenseless, but he’d had a long while to do that already, while Thor had been unconscious. “Something tells me you are not the same as those who would threaten me.”

The selkie moved around the fire, regarding Thor, moving slowly as though _Thor_ was the one at the highest disadvantage here, the one who most needed to feel safe.

“You wouldn’t threaten me, would you, Thor Odinson?”

“How do you know my name?” Thor blurted, taking a sudden step back, pulling the skin tighter as both a cover and a reminder to the selkie of what was at stake. Never mind that Thor still had no idea how to escape this grotto, the skin being in his possession was collateral enough.

Another smile, and the selkie moved a little closer.

“Do you remember, once, not so long ago, you stayed the spear of one of your men, who’d been hunting before the ship was set to sail?”

The memory came rushing back. Thor, stopping one of the men – who, the night before this, had been among those to hold Thor during the attack – from harpooning a seal. They had needed to leave or they would lose the tide and the light. He’d insisted the seal was a sign from the gods, a blessing for their voyage. It was too beautiful to kill, just look at its intelligent eyes.

“It was you,” Thor breathed. “Not a seal. A selkie.”

“Loki,” the selkie answered. “Loki is my name. You saved me. I saved you.”

Thor nodded. A debt repaid, and yet...

“You say you’ve saved me,” he started, not backing away though Loki was moving closer, the firelight dancing on his wet, naked skin. “You’ve stripped me bare, dried my clothing, kept me warm and safe. But where is _here_? I’m not a selkie, or a siren. This isn’t a safe place, for me. How do I leave?”

Loki’s smile grew, and he stepped forward, moving into Thor’s space so quickly Thor didn’t have time to do much, couldn’t keep Loki from gripping the sides of his sealskin, tugging forward. The movement left them pressed together, bare skin against bare skin, Loki’s face so close to his their noses brushed.

“You leave with _me_. The debt is repaid, but I have further use of you, my viking. I want to know land. I want to know life as a human. But I want to keep this.” He tugged the sealskin in his hands. “I can only trust _one_ human with that. _You_.”

A bargain. The selkie had saved his life, but he wanted to strike a bargain.

“You want to live as a human?”

Loki nodded. “For a time. Your people would not see issue with you coming home with a male lover, would they? The easiest way to explain me away.”

“A _lover_?”

The answer Thor got this time was a wicked grin, and the shift of Loki’s body against his in a way that had him feeling a flush creep up his neck.

“I suspect you wouldn’t be as adverse to the idea as you’re trying to appear.” Loki murmured, leaning in close again. His lips brushed Thor’s, soft and gentle, almost truly affectionate. “No. Not adverse at all. You have not even asked what’s to be gained in this bargain for you.”

That was too good a point, and Thor jerked away from Loki, stopped by the sealskin still in Loki’s hands.

“Revenge.” Loki whispered. “Against those who would have seen you dead. Against those who have already made attempt against your father, I’m sure. I would help you. My help is... not something to turn away so easily. And all I ask is a few years of your time.”

Revenge.

It was a siren song, if Thor had ever heard it. He had been wary of that, reminding himself that the selkie was likely nothing more than a shapeshifting, craftily captured siren, but now that he’d been given the offer, he was finding it hard to refuse. Revenge for his own sake may not have been so sweet.

Revenge for his father? For his family?

Thor wrapped his arms around Loki, pulling him good and close, and kissed him. No hesitation, no fear.

“All right, selkie.” He said, softly, against Loki’s lips when they parted. “We have a bargain.”


End file.
